Talking points from the Premiership

Dundee off to a flier

I thought there was a decent chance that Greg Stewart would be a one season wonder.  From Cowdenbeath forward to Player of the Year finalist?  Surely it couldn't be sustained.  Certainly, it seemed unlikely he would top last season's fifteen goals.

Well, he bagged two at Rugby Park, and he was absolutely sensational.  The movement of Dundee's two strikers, Kane Hemmings and Rory Loy, allowed him to come in from the right and get in between the Kilmarnock defence and midfield.  Even before his glorious opener - the curled shot into the far corner with his left foot which is increasingly becoming a trademark - he had created several early opportunities for teammates.  His skill and composed finish for his second goal, and Dundee's fourth, was also superb, though it might had been trickier if Mark Connolly hadn't been so willing to fall on his backside.

It actually seems harsh to single out one Dundee player; this was an immense performance from the whole side.  On paper, playing two strikers and three attacking midfield players looked reckless, but the Dark Blues were able to win possession so far up the pitch that they never looked exposed.  Even Gary Harkins looked hungry (and not in the literal sense); try watching his scooped cross for Rory Loy's second goal without making a "mwaaahhhhh" noise.

So are Dundee the next Brazil, or are Kilmarnock the next Blue Brazil?  A bit of both.  So awful were the homeside that the BBC highlights contained two chances for them...one of which was a Kris Boyd effort when everyone else had stopped ages ago for an offside flag.  It should be borne in mind that the team included a goalkeeper, left-back, central midfielder and striker who had failed to stand out in the second tier last year (though to be fair goalie Jamie McDonald kept the score down here).

Dundee fans should maybe wait a few weeks before getting too excited - they will play much stronger opposition than this most weeks.  On the other hand, it might not be too early for Killie supporters to press the panic button. LS

A thriller at Tynecastle
Regular readers may have noted that towards the end of last season I became some kind of de facto correspondent for dull St Johnstone games.  Many a Sunday evening/Monday morning was spent watching highlights of drab fare from McDiarmid Park, and then usually rewatched as I’d drift off during the first eight attempts.

Not for the first game of this season though, as the teams got together beforehand and decided enough with this so-called 'defending.'  The tone was set after four minutes when a Brad McKay slip let Juanma in to score on his league debut.  I thought the Spaniard looked impressive, with his touch allowing him to burst clear in the move leading up to the penalty a particular highlight.

It will be interesting to see how Hearts get on this season after romping away with the Championship.  I’m perhaps not as high on them as some, and their defending of balls into the box is an area in which they will have to improve.  Losing Danny Wilson was no doubt a blow given his assured displays at the heart of the defence last season, but despite the victory they surely won’t be happy at almost blowing a two goal lead at home.

But given how much fun this game was to watch, I don’t want to be too critical. If these teams want to be more Newcastle Utd c. 1996/97 than St Johnstone c. 2014/15 then who am I to complain? IM

Could Caley Thistle do a Motherwell?

A wee caveat: Caley Thistle were without five outfield players, and (compared to my own idea of their strongest XI) had only four of their strongest lineup playing in their strongest positions.

Still, few would have expected them to be so dominated by Motherwell, who really should have won by a far greater margin than the single goal Wes Fletcher snaffled after a horrendous blunder by Greg Tansey.  The main reason for that was Owain Fon Williams; the Welsh keeper made a string of excellent stops, including a penalty save.

ICT lacked pace and direction; Motherwell had plenty of the former, especially through wide players Marvin Johnson and Joe Chalmers.  When each of them got the ball, the direction was forward, as quickly as possible.  Johnson, playing on the right, kept driving into the space inevitably left by Inverness' marauding full-backs.  He won a (soft) penalty, came close to scoring at least twice, and was an absolute menace all day.  My delight at Lionel Ainsworth's absence was tempered by Chalmers, who, despite being a full-back playing on the wing, looked like he'd played in left midfield all his life.

With no speed in their passing or movement, the home side offered zero threat and didn't even create a proper goalscoring chance in the whole game.  They will be better when Aaron Doran and Jordan Roberts are fit, and Andrea Mtuyi-Mutombo gets up to speed; however, in the meantime they may have a problem at the other end.  Gary Warren's leg was broken by a horrible challenge by Stephen Pearson which probably should have got a red card - to be fair, Pearson doesn't have a reputation for malicious challenges and this one fell into the 'reckless' category - and Josh Meekings departed at half-time with an injury.  More than a few fans remember how Motherwell fell from a second place finish to a second-bottom finish in the space of a year, and fear that ICT might follow that path.

Motherwell's joy at an excellent performance and result may be tempered by the news that Pearson may have badly damaged his knee in the aforementioned incident.  The midfielder was brilliant in the first half here and if 'Well have aspirations of a high league finish they can't afford to lose him for an extended period. LS

No travel sickness for Aberdeen
Returning from Almaty in Kazakhstan to complete a 6,000 mile round trip - the longest such trip in the history of European fitba competitions - Aberdeen faced a more modest bus jaunt down the A90 to open up their Premiership campaign at Tannadice. However, playing less than 72 hour after completing such a mammoth trip - and against a Dundee United team that skelped them under similar circumstances last season - there must have been a fair amount of trepidation amongst the Dons support as they headed down the North East coast.

Of course, this wasn't the same team that beat the Dons 3-0 at Pittodrie - in fact, John 'Squiggler' Rankin was the only player in the United side who started in that win.  The three most high-profile talents (Messrs Armstrong, Mackay-Steven & Ciftci) were sold to Celtic and with other notable outgoings such as Calum Butcher, Radoslaw Cierzniak and Jaroslaw Fojut this season surely represents the most challenging overhaul for Jackie McNamara since he first took charge of the club.

The first half of this match was a fairly even (if somewhat dull) affair, although United arguably had the better of chances. None were better than the one that fell to Mario Bilate just before half time, but he failed to lift his shot over the advancing Danny Ward and the opportunity was gone.  Bilate was hooked at half time following what would have to be considered a worryingly listless effort for Arab supporters.  Darko Bodul replaced him and faired little better, although subsequent substitute Simon Murray at least provided a more encouraging debut.

In spite of the fears of a European hangover, the Dons exerted the greater control as the match progressed. Andy Considine was unlucky not to capitalise after new United kepper Luis Zwick was beaten to a cross (a worrying sign for Arabs who will have been sick of seeing similar flaps from previous incumbents of the goalie gloves...) only for Ryan McGowan to make a goalsaving clearance.  However, it was only five minutes later that Kenny McLean's late looping header gave the Dons the winner.  That's three goals this season already for the former St Mirren man, who had previously failed to register a single strike last season following his February arrival at Pittodrie.  With a full (albeit brief) preseason behind him this time around, perhaps we are now beginning to see the best of him in an Aberdeen jersey.

So Aberdeen kick off their league campaign with a victory over United, but can they challenge Celtic?  Well, we have 37 more of these games to find out whether the Dons can push the champions any closer than they did last season.  Aberdeen winning the league has already been described by some as "unthinkable" (*cough*) but, for now, I will simply quote the more optimistic musings of Douglas Adams...

"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all." MI

Bore draw at New Douglas Park
The Beeb bothered with just 101 seconds of highlights for Accies-Partick - more than half of which were devoted to the players walking out and the two yellow card offences that earned Frederic Frans an early bath.  Going by some reports, that amount of time was generous.

The early sending off forced Alan Archibald's side to be more cagey, and whilst Accies did create a few chances - the best being a good move leading to a Greg Docherty shot off the post late on - they failed to make the most of huge amounts of possession and the inability to break down a centre-back partnership of Liam Lindsay (aged 19) and Jack Hendry (aged 20) does not bode well.  Martin Canning really did not need to keep two defensive midfielders on the park for so long and should have gambled on a partner for Christian Nade instead of playing just one up front for the whole match.

Whilst few would criticize Archibald's decision to go defensive, his claims afterward that "the referee ruined the game" deserved short shrift.  It wasn't the ref's decision to spend seventy minutes playing for a nil-nil, it was yours. LS

Scepovic blows his last chance

Willie Collum might have managed a new personal best by going twenty whole minutes into the season before a controversial decision; showing a yellow card to Craig Gordon for his foul on Jackson Irvine was questionable.  My first thought was that Irvine made sure he fell over the keeper's leg and that Gordon didn't really make an attempt to bring him down; however, having given the foul I refuse to believe that a shot into an open goal from twenty yards, even from a slightly acute angle, does not count as a goalscoring opportunity for any professional footballer.

There was little else to focus on; Celtic's early penalty was a stonewaller, and their second goal killed this game off.  Whilst they were able to avoid expending much energy in the second half ahead of a midweek trip to Azerbaijan, they didn't manage to avoid injuries.  Leigh Griffiths was an early casualty and his knock probably means that the question of who to start up front on Wednesday is once again decided in Nadir Ciftci's favour.

With Ciftci suspended, Stefan Scepovic came off the bench and got 71 minutes to impress. And he completely failed to take his chance.  The Serb might as well not have been on the pitch; after an hour his number was incorrectly displayed on the fourth official's board, but there would have been no surprise or disappointment had he actually been substituted himself.  This surely was his last chance to show Ronny Deila he can do a job for Celtic, and I'd expect him to be punted off on loan by the end of the month.  With Deila having lost patience with Anthony Stokes, expect another striker to be brought in during this transfer window. LS


Martin Ingram (MI) is our Aberdeen Correspondent.  Legend has it that he is the tallest man in the Red Army.  He writes regularly for Aberdeen fanzine The Red Final.

Iain Meredith (IM) is technically a Rangers fan, but these days he tends to support them ironically.  He only agreed to help with this blog because now he can tell his wife that he's "only watching the game to help a friend out".

Lawrie Spence (LS) has ranted and spouted his ill-informed opinions on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007.  He has a life outside this blog.  Honestly.